James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

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All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

Sunday, May 4, 2014

A few years ago, paleontologists found direct fossil evidence of a dramatic scene where a giant snake invaded a nest of baby sauropods.

When I was proposing illustration ideas to the editors of Ranger Rick for their May issue about baby dinosaurs, I suggested that we reconstruct this fossil.

Here's the final oil painting. I chose an orange and cyan color gamut for a weird look, and I used photographic effects, such as lens flares to add a sense of vérité.

I referred to this fossil photo, along with a line drawing in the scientific paper showing the position of the snake, eggs, and hatchling.

I did a series of quick sketches in colored pencil, fountain pen, and watercolor to explore variations of angles, lighting ideas, and value organizations. These sketches were based on a beautiful sculpted reconstruction by Tyler Keillor.

But I wanted to sculpt my own interpretation of it, so I made a maquette out of plasticine modeling clay. I used that because I planned to recycle the material rather than saving it. Note the lens flare effects when it was set up out in real sunlight.

6 comments:

Oh no, poor baby dinosaurs. :( But beautiful art all the same. :D I love seeing your process, from layout sketches to sculpture to finished painting. You make everything look so beautiful, even dinos getting gulped by giant snakes. ;D I love all the detail and attention to shape and structure in this. Keep up the wonderful works!

Just out of curiosity, I was wondering what type of sauropod the babies are. I think it's interesting that the snake doesn't seem to have teeth (or maybe they're there and I didn't notice them). ;) Very cool!

Lovely. When looking at things like this I'm always imagining just what happened to them to make this scene freeze in time. The article said they were suddenly buried in sediment, but I still wonder what.

Dan, thanks! I suppose I could have put the flares anywhere on the lens axis on that diagonal line away from the light source, which was from the upper left. I needed to show them against dark background forms, and I put them on the head because it seemed like a place no one would deliberately put such FX--which made them seem hopefully more random and accidental.